


The ice was getting thinner (under me and you.)

by Veni_vidi_vici



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:07:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7070329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veni_vidi_vici/pseuds/Veni_vidi_vici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hux, the starting goaltender for the reigning NCAA Ice Hockey Champion Knights is injured the summer before senior year and Kylo is called up to try and take his place. The road to a second championship (and graduation!) is a long one and it's even longer with graduation goggles. </p><p>AKA a college hockey AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The ice was getting thinner (under me and you.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So it happens that I am graduating, and I wanted to write something that captured the emotional rollercoaster that is leaving behind an awesome, awesome, part of my life. 
> 
> This isn't Beta'd, so all mistakes are mine! I also moved to London midway through writing this, so the spelling might change part way through (I'm American, but my computer thinks I'm British.)
> 
> The title is from the Death Cab for Cutie song: The Ice is Getting Thinner

//One//

 

 

They’re there to greet Hux at the hospital. Kylo stands in the back. Three years of club hockey later, here he is with the reigning NCAA champions as the new kid, no less. 

His height prevents him from going unnoticed, but still, he does his best to blend in with the potted fern adorning the corner of the lobby. The only person who pays him any attention when he decides to hang back as his teammates swarm over to Hux being helped to his feet by a petite, brunette nurse, is Poe. 

The shaggy-haired forward shoots him a lingering look with those annoying doe eyes before mobbing Hux with the rest of the group. Kylo glares at the back of Poe’s fluffy, fluffy head with disgust. 

Hux, even in his black ankle-to-knee leg brace, jamming his crutches underneath his armpits, looks just like Kylo remembers him from the freshman dorms. He remembers mussed, bright red hair sticking out from the top of the shower stall, and pale feet pressed against the white floor tile. 

He even has a few vague memories here and there, shrouded in a haze of beer and vodka in plastic handles, of Hux’s clipped voice and rarely-heard sharp laugh echoing down the hall. 

He didn’t seen much of him after that, not without the goalie mask anyway. Kylo had seen him play a handful of times throughout his three years, of course. He was nothing short of brilliant, nothing shy of the murmurings from trainers and coaches in long stretches of tunnel and the cramped space of musty locker rooms. 

A “Definitely a good shot in the draft” here and an “AHL contract up north, maybe,” there had trickled down the grapevine until it had reached Kylo Ren, sitting in his own sweat and club uniform after their fifth straight loss the season. 

He looks at Hux now, without the mask, and has trouble picturing him in the crease, hiding beneath the bulk of his pads and behind the custom helmet.

A sigh of relief sneaks up on him. If he’s being honest with himself (which he isn’t), he is grateful for it, for the inkling of familiarity associated with this Hux. Sticking his hands into pockets, Kylo meanders over just when Poe begins to leave. 

He glances back at the man who wears the ‘C’ so proudly on his sweater, even during the off-season, strutting around like he carried the weight of the whole damn team on his shoulders. Even when everyone knows it was Hux who had carried the team. At least it had been. 

Hux’s head snaps up. His eyes, more green than Kylo had recalled seeing from beneath the thick wiring of his mask, lock onto Kylo’s. He sneers. 

“So you’re my replacement.” He hits the consonants in the word ‘replacement’ with more venom and harder than necessary. Kylo is, in fact, Hux’s replacement, but hearing the injured redhead say it with such disdain makes Kylo squirm a little in his skin. 

“Kylo Ren.” He sticks out a hand for Hux to shake, which Hux does with one cocked eyebrow after shifting his weight on his crutches. Hux’s grip is hot and crushing, making Kylo’s skin seer upon contact. He retracts his hand at the first available second. 

“The roster and the e-mail said your name was Ben. Ben Solo,” he pauses a moment to think. “Actually, I’m pretty sure your name is Ben Solo. We lived on the same floor freshman year, in the lake-view dorms.” 

Kylo wonders briefly if Hux is testing him. He gives him a no-nonsense answer. “I remember. 4C, next to the stairs,” he says in monotone. “I go by Kylo Ren now.” 

“The jersey’s gonna say ‘Solo,’” Hux steamrolls over Kylo’s correction of his name, cooly dismissing him. Of fucking course it is, thinks Kylo. It’s just a name on the back of a jersey, but still he bristles. Hux doesn’t seem to notice, or he doesn’t really care. From what he’s heard about the guy, Kylo suspects it’s probably the latter. 

“It’s whatever,” he says, instead of cluing Hux in on any of his internal monologue. The conversation lapses, falling into an uneasy lull. 

Kylo studies Hux’s disinterested eyes as he scrolls through all the messages he missed while confined to the rehab centre. Kylo searches for some indication of pain or frustration, possibly anger that he would not be on the ice for opening day of his senior year. Maybe he wouldn’t be on the ice at all. But maybe Hux doesn’t know that yet. 

He searches for awhile, but finds nothing hiding beneath Hux’s strawberry-laced, gold lashes. It bothers him, finding nothing so he looks harder. No lingering fury, turmoil, anguish of any kind is visible in the calm ocean of his eyes. Just the steely look creeping in from the corners of his irises as he notices Kylo’s prolonged staring. 

“Is this going to be a thing?” Hux snaps, waving one bony, accusing finger at him. Kylo freezes under Hux’s cold gaze. He suddenly has the urge to ask Hux if he is alright, if he is feeling better after surgery, if he has a fucking ride to his new rehab centre back at school, but the words get lodged in his throat, drowned out by his thrumming heartbeat echoing in his throat, his ears. He swallows hard, and instead of all that comes out is a gruff, 

“Fuck off — ” followed by an equally unrefined, “no.” Kylo wants to take the words back the second they escape into the open, flitting about, becoming tangled in the tension between himself and Hux. The redhead only looks slightly taken aback. He scoffs and shakes his head of gelled, red hair, saying nothing whatsoever to Kylo. 

Finding this deeply insulting, Kylo quickly forgets about his own blunder, the rudeness he’d displayed toward an unsuspecting Hux. He returns the frown, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. 

Kylo remembers this Hux from his first year as well, all sharp angles and icy tone whenever he responded to something Kylo had said in passing. Good to know he hasn’t outgrown looking down his nose at anything that breathes near him. Maybe this was the Hux behind the mask. Kylo doesn’t know. 

The silence between them is grating, but Kylo is nothing if not stubborn, and leaving would mean admitting defeat. That, and he truly has no place else to be. Mingling and making small talk with the other guys actually scares him. He’d rather stand in the wake of Hux’s bitter silence. So he waits for something, anything to happen. Finally, it is Poe, all energy and bouncing on his heels, who swoops in like a tan, shorter, Superman, sweeping them away and onto the streets of LA. 

 

 

**

 

 

The streets really mean the tiny parking lot immediately outside the automatic sliding doors of the hospital. 

“I’m riding with Poe,” Finn, a second year defenseman, calls out the second they set foot outside. “We already decided, earlier,” he says, even though no one had protested. No one responds, either. 

For all that the hospital is clean lines and cold, artificial air breathing life into the bowels of the building, LA is a greasy city. Greasy, and composed of hazy building outlines strung together by the ever present smog.

“Disgusting,” Hux murmurs, pulling out a box of Parliaments and taking one out. Kylo can only assume he's talking about LA, too. The blaring Southern California sun beats down relentlessly on Kylo, who remains a healthy six inches away from Hux. 

There is only one shady spot in the loading zone of the parking lot, and Hux has it all to himself. Behind him, the palm trees stand remarkably still against the charcoal-smudged, blue skies. 

Kylo stands equally still, the heat rising from the pavement slowly eating away at the soles of his Converse AllStars as he stares at the cigarette resting between Hux’s thin, pink lips while he lights it. He takes a long drag and exhales, long tendrils of grey smoke hovering in the shape of a cloud in the stagnant air above Kylo’s head. He swats dramatically at the air. 

Hux lowers his cigarette and gives him his best ‘fight me’ look. “I’m rehabbing, so it doesn’t really matter,” he snaps. 

“I didn’t say anything,” Kylo retorts. Because he didn’t. Hux is a fucking idiot anyway if he thinks he can chain smoke his way through rehab, but really, it’s none of Kylo’s business. 

Hux flicks his cigarette toward Poe, who is dressed every bit like a Southern California hussy in his tan canvas shorts and bro-tank and sauntering in their direction. He pushes his aviator sunglasses to rest on top of his curls as he appeared along side them, fighting his way into Hux’s pocket of shade. 

“Put that shit away,” he scolds, flicking his chin in the direction of the smoke clenched between Hux’s index and middle fingers. “So, Solo — ” 

“Oh, you didn’t hear? It’s Ren,” Hux says, voice dripping with mockery. He has yet to put out the cigarette, letting it burn away with the extra-thick filter clamped between his teeth.

“What?” Poe doesn’t get it. 

“It’s Kylo Ren now,” Kylo jumps in before Hux can get another word in. 

Poe looks all sorts of confused now. His brows furrow. “But the jersey’s gonna say  
‘Solo’ — ” 

“We already covered this,” Hux interrupts, cigarette still dangling from his slightly parted lips. Poe turns toward him slowly. The weight of his captaincy rumbles fiercely around him as he faces Hux fully. The palm fronds rustle, but Kylo didn't feel breeze pick up. 

In the distance, Finn tries out different goal cellys for of their top prospect right-wingers, who try to imitate Finn’s flailing arms with gusto. Kylo looks on for awhile, then tries to disappear into his own skin as he watches the stare-down going on between Poe and Hux. He’s good at that, being invisible. 

He runs through his pre-game exercises in his head. Stretch, lap and shuffle, stretch again. 

He doesn’t have time to get to the second ‘lap and shuffle,’ because in a burst of movement, Poe has Hux by the shirt collar and is breathing about an inch away from the redhead’s face.

Poe had yanks Hux even closer to him with one hand fisted in his sweaty t-shirt. Kylo flinches. Hux doesn’t. Poe reaches up with his other hand, long fingers snatching the cigarette from Hux with a furious snarl. Hux’s teeth clack together as the placeholder is removed and stomped out until it’s practically part of the pavement. 

Poe turns his attention back to Kylo as if nothing happened. “Sorry about the sweater,” his dark eyes meet Kylo’s chocolate brown ones, his expression impossibly soft. 

For his part, Hux remains dead silent. He busies himself with grounding the discarded cigarette baking into the cement some more with the end of his crutch. “If I had known, I would have said something to the equipment guys, but Marty and Frenchie had already taken care of it, and I’d always known you as Ben Solo. Just, sorry.” He claps Kylo once on the back. 

Hux looks up at this, possibly having assumed that Kylo and Poe were meeting for the first time. Kylo has no idea what to do with such a sincere fucking apology. He forces out an “okay” and keeps his eyes glued to the spot just past Poe’s ear, where traffic had ground to a halt. (It hasn’t moved in maybe five minutes now. Kylo’s been keeping track.) Fucking LA. 

“We’ve—” Poe waves a hand between himself and Finn, who had stopped dancing but was still sweating up a storm, leaning on the hood of a beat up old Volvo and fanning himself with a wrinkled hospital brochure, “got a few people to pick up on the way, so we’re headed out now,” Poe tells them. Or him. He can’t tell if Hux heard a word out of Poe’s mouth. 

But then Hux asks, “Who am I taking?” He had heard then, apparently. 

“You’re taking…B-Ren? …Kylo?” 

“Ren is fine.” 

“Right. Ren, Rey, and Mitaka.” Hux’s eyes flash at the last name rolling lazily of Poe’s tongue. Kylo wonders if he should have recognised this “Mitaka,” but only because Hux clearly did. He waits for Hux to do more, to react more, but he betrays nothing else. Instead, his almost-seafoam eyes go blank. 

“Why isn’t Rey going with you and Finn?” Hux prods. It’s Poe’s turn to break eye contact, huffing and looking through the sunny orange strands of Hux’s hair. “Is there something you’re not telling us? Teammates don’t keep secrets, you know.” Hux snarks, smirking. That’s a lie. They almost always kept secrets. Big secrets. 

“She asked to ride with you.” Poe deadpans.

“Are you sure she didn’t just ask to not ride with Finn?” Hux pushes some more. Poe sighs. Hux is lucky he’s a goaltending prodigy or he’d be a fucking pariah. 

That stern, constipated look is sneaking back onto Poe’s face. “Just take her in your car, Hux. Jesus fucking christ. You’ll never have to come to one of these things again, for fucks sake.” Hux looks positively delighted to see Poe riled up. It’s kind of really charming, Kylo thinks. 

Poe sighs again, rubbing his face with his hands and mumbling something under his breath. Kylo’s barely paying attention to him, though, focused instead on the way Hux’s leer shifts back into his customary scowl after he grows bored of Poe’s frustration. At some point, Hux’s pink tongue darts out and traces over his chapped lips. 

When he snaps out of it, Poe is speaking, or rather, he's still speaking. “…So you need to split the driving with someone. I don’t care who, but you’re not driving the entire way,” he orders. 

Kylo hadn’t caught most of what he’d said, but Hux is clearly displeased, and opens his mouth to protest. Poe stops him before he has the chance to get a word in. 

“Ren — you make sure he doesn’t drive the whole way.” Kylo fixes a glare at the shorter man. He is fairly certain that no mortal could make Hux do something against his will. Poe has to know that. 

“Okay,” Kylo agrees meekly. Poe hardly looks convinced, but he isn’t interested in sticking around for Hux’s verbose protest that he had not doubt been preparing his head for the past minute or so. Once Poe had stomped off, Kylo turns back to Hux. 

“How do you know Dameron?” Hux asks immediately, like the question had been sitting uncomfortably on the tip of his tongue for too long. He sounds like a freaking drill sergeant demanding Kylo to answer for his actions. 

“Midget hockey. Conditioning camp in Nova Scotia and Lake Placid before college,” Kylo replies, thinking back to the charismatic, almond-skinned boy who had stolen away all his friends before the end of their first week in Canada. 

Poe, who had stood at a measly five-foot-seven with his skates at sixteen years old, had hammered him with too-hard shots during practice, and then whispered in his over-sized ears after that it was the only way he’d get better, stronger. Kylo pushes away the memories. “It’s two hours to Big Bear, so we’ll each take one,” Kylo offers, no, tells Hux. With authority. 

“That’s stupid, I’ll just drive the whole way,” Hux replies. Kylo doesn’t know why he ever thought he might get a different answer. 

Maybe Hux isn’t how Kylo remembers him after all. Because that Hux cared. That Hux probably slept in his goalie pads and absolutely believed that missing one morning practice would end his whole fucking career, (“Carey Price probably never missed practice,” he’d said) while this Hux busies himself with pulling another cigarette out from the box. 

“No, that’s fucking stupid,” Kylo fires back, slapping the box away from his hands. Hux watches as the white and blue box skittered a few steps away from his and Kylo’s feet. A first-year centre, or the water boy, Kylo doesn’t know, hurries over to pick it up, handing it back to Hux and scurrying off.

“Fuck you. What — ” 

“You, driving the whole two hours. It’ll fuck up the circulation in your bad leg.” Someone has to care, and if Hux isn’t going to, then Kylo would because what the fuck, why wouldn’t he? Kylo is breathing hard, like he’d yelled at Hux rather than spat a single line at him. 

Hux inches closer to Kylo and surprises him with an amused grin. He lifts one hand from the squishy grip of his crutch and jabs him square in the chest. “You are more…aggressive than I remember you, Ren.” It almost sounds coy. Almost. 

“Yeah, well. I grew up.” Hux actually laughs at this. Lips pull back to reveal teeth as white as a midwestern blizzard. “I’m only your replacement. You can’t do stupid shit and fuck things up worse.” 

Hux snorts. “It doesn’t fucking matter,” he glances behind him in time to see a shorter, dark-haired guy, Mitaka then, walking over to them, a heavy duffle bag on his shoulder with Rey in tow. Kylo knows Rey, at least. “You’re going to be in net for opening day of my senior year. And for who knows how long after that. Maybe even half of the season. 

“I’m going to play what’s left of the season and that’ll be it.” Hux still doesn’t sound angry, but Kylo can hear the shadow of something apart from the indifference he so desperately wants himself to feel. 

“I grew up too, Ben Solo. So please,” Hux drawls sarcastically, “don’t get your panties all up in a bunch on my behalf.” 

 

 

**

 

 

Kylo is glad for Mitaka and Rey’s timely arrival just then, because he didn’t have a clever comeback to throw at Hux. Rey waves to them with a bright smile, bracelets jingling, while Mitaka slouches and makes a beeline for Hux, stopping only briefly to size up Kylo. 

Rey reintroduces herself, smiling at Kylo from behind her rose-tinted shades. "That's right!" She exclaims. "We've met! That 40-save shut out against the Cornell club team last year? No — two years ago? It was spectacular,” she gushes. “Perhaps we can sit down and do a player profile piece closer to the start of the season. Hux always says ‘no,’ and it’d be fun to finally do an interview with the goalie in my last year. My god, can you believe we’re seniors?!” She babbles, trailing off. 

Rey, with chestnut hair pulled back into a lazy bun and pink stained cheeks, is really quite pretty. She’d been covering the Aurora University Knights for the school paper for three years now, a side job she’s clearly very proud of. She also happened to be friends with Poe Dameron and followed him around like a puppy back when Poe was thinking about skipping college and going straight for the draft. 

When Kylo fails to respond right away, she peeks past him to look at Hux and Mitaka. Mitaka has his head bowed and is speaking to Hux in hushed tones. 

He looks up when he sees Rey, her head poking out from behind Kylo. He narrows his wide, tar black eyes at her. Rey ducks back behind Kylo and whispers, “I don’t know what his deal is, he’s been like this all day.” 

Side-stepping Kylo, she approaches Hux, effortlessly pushing Mitaka out of the way to give the redhead a one-arm hug. Displaced but not discouraged, Mitaka doesn’t take his eyes off Kylo. 

Mitaka appears to be the polar opposite of Hux in everything from colouring to energy. 

Even now, he radiates nervous energy. Kylo thinks he looks ridiculous. Soft grey hugs the lean muscles of his arms, even though it was too hot for a sweater. His whole body is tense, jaw clenched as he compulsively shifts his weight back and forth while continuing to stare. Rey chatters on in the background to Hux, who grunts periodically in response. 

“Anyway, they’ve lost two of their four top forwards, so we should have a good chance of making it into the Frozen Four,” Kylo hears Rey say to a bored Hux while tucking a hair that had escaped from her bun behind her ear. 

“Ren.” Hux addresses him, cutting Rey off. “You remember Dopheld Mitaka.” Of course he did, how could he forget a name like that. Except he doesn’t, remember his name, or any of him, and he scrunches up his face to let Hux know. “He lived on our floor freshman year,” Hux throws him a much-need life line. 

“Right.” Kylo has no recollection of Mitaka, of his messy nearly-black hair or those ridiculous cheeks still covered in at least one layer of baby fat. 

“Right,” Hux echoes. He definitely knows that Kylo has no fucking clue who Mitaka is. “He’s going to be your back-up. So try not get hurt.” Mitaka doesn’t respond to the dig so Hux goes on. “Let’s get going then, I don’t want to still be driving when it gets dark out.” 

“G-give me your keys, I’ll drive,” Mitaka tries, holding out the clammy palm of his hand to Hux who looked at it like it had insulted his mother. Hux does not hand over the set of keys he has dangling in his hand. 

Hux takes a step backward and stares blankly at Mitaka. The palm fronds rustle again, loudly this time. The lilt of a woman’s laughter hits Kylo’s ear harshly and he’s suddenly wildly aware of the smell of burnt rubber wafting through the air. He hopes to gods it isn’t his shoes. “Kylo’s going to drive half. We already agreed.” Hux says, too slowly. Kylo nods. 

Mitaka takes his hand back, shoving it into the pocket of his khakis awkwardly. “Fine,” he says, quietly, letting Hux brush past him on his crutches. Kylo follows wordlessly with Rey on his heels. 

“I read that the weather is going to be amazing. And the cabin! They redid the whole patio area, you remember the little patio, Hux, Mitaka, there’s more space now and a brand new grill…” Rey prattles on excitedly to no one in particular. Mitaka keeps his eyes glued to the back of Hux’s head as he hobbles across the parking lot. “I can’t believe this is our last year doing this,” she sighs. Mitaka grunts. Kylo says nothing. 

“I’m glad it is.” Hux laments, but Rey doesn’t hear.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'll try to update with some consistency. It's all mapped out. This one's pretty short, but I just wanted to get it up. Some chapters will be longer than others, but the second should be up fairly soon! 
> 
> Comments and Kudos always appreciated (:  
> Thanks again!


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